Moscow mayor comes out against turning the city Duma into “political get-together"

MOSCOW, December 29, 2:39 /ITAR-TASS/. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Saturday that he expected rivalry at the 2014 elections to the Moscow City Duma to be tough and was hoping for constructive work with the newly-elected Moscow legislature.

“Of course, the competition is going to be tough. I agree that the next Duma is going to be different in its quality,” Sobyanin said in the Postscriptum programme at Moscow’s TV Tsentr channel on December 28.

“It is very important for me that the next Duma is constructive despite its opposition mindset,” Sobyanin explained. According to him, the deputies should focus on solving the city’s urgent problems. “This (Moscow Duma) should not be a political get-together where people are going to promote themselves rather than think about the problems of city residents and will show more concern with their own political future rather than the future of our city,” Sobyanin went on to say.

The mayor noted that elections of municipal deputies had recently taken place in the city. Moscow elected its mayor in September.

“Moscow keeps its political tone up,” the mayor said.

In the meantime, Sobyanin said last Monday, December 23, that he could run for a third mayoral term.

“Of course, I do not rule out anything. But I have been an elected mayor only for three months. So I will still have time to think everything over,” Sobyanin said in an interview with The Village Internet magazine.

Asked what Moscow will look like in five years from now, he noted that the city had programs for developing medicine, education and transport. “If we put everything together, I believe that the style of life and the general atmosphere should be different. The city should be kinder and more comfortable for its people,” Sobyanin went on to say.

The mayor said that one project would not be enough to make the city more comfortable for living. “We need a combination of projects so that people could feel that Moscow has become more comfortable,” Sobyanin emphasized.